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• Post #4461394

  The dodos were trusting, but not because they were stupid. They had adapted to an environment where fear was not useful. Until the arrival of man. Besides, they were likely the only pigeons to be active in the dark. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-dodo-birds-clever-thought.html

• Post #4207354

  Only keep what is yours.

• Post #4207353

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@derpostillon/116828566366152519 "The Niels Bohr statue in Denmark consists entirely of atoms." (I do not trust Der Postillon very much, so I do not know what to do of this.)

• Post #4207352

  I just read as part of the description of a crime suspect that they “speak German.” And then I heard someone speak German! Is that the criminal? Unfortunately, I cannot see them, but it’s the person giving a passenger announcement in this train between Cologne and Frankfurt.

• Post #4207351

  Music is important in nature to avoid hybrids of different bird species. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-songs-play-greater-role-plumage.html

• Post #4207350

  Rats show empathy, just like some humans do. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-rats-empathy.html

• Post #4207349

  When I was a child, we called these formations "sheep paths", but we were told that this was just an expression. They were not actually made by sheep. Science now says that they perhaps are. I'm now eagerly hoping for a new scientific explanation of early morning "fairy mist" over ponds. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-darwin-150yearold-hillside-mystery-virtual.html

• Post #4207348

  People try to find house building grounds where they are safe from landslides. Apparently, Pluto is not an option. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-massive-landslides-icy-pluto.html

• Post #4207347

  It’s nice with a sense of achievement. Today I’m proud that I managed to switch off the time display on my new microwave less than eight hours after I got it.

• Post #4207346

  A sceptic.

• Post #4207345

  How the motifs of birdsong fit together. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-birdsong-differs-world-motifs.html

• Post #4207344

  Finding passerine feathers in fecal samples of bats, a 2025 study showed that the greater noctule bat (Nyctalus lasiopterus), preys on nocturnally migrating birds. Science did not know of this before, but four hundred years earlier, the artist Jan Brueghel had depicted the behaviour in a painting. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2536525123

• Post #4207343

  During a total solar eclipse, not every animal mistakes the sudden darkness for night. Animals may not do so, but I sure felt that night was upon us when I last experienced a total solar eclipse. https://sciencex.com/news/2026-07-darkness-fell-total-solar-eclipse.html

• Post #4207342

  I once was told that life was electricity - the movement of charged ions throughout the cells. Perhaps life is light. That's an illuminating thought. Awful pun? Oh, lighten up! https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02311-z

• Post #1914444

  Did ants learn this from cleaner fish? There are small ants that clean big ants without meeting any agression, just like small cleaner fish can clean sharks. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.73308

• Post #1914443

  RE: https://mastodon.social/@coreyspowell/116455920822170695 Yet another animal I'll try to avoid in my bathtub, when I'm having a bath.

• Post #1914442

  Getting it right isn’t easy.

• Post #1914441

  I wrote a blog-entry three years ago. I added another one today. I hope it won't become a habit. https://gallantgossip.blogspot.com/2026/04/a-familiar-face.html

• Post #1271037

  RE: https://mas.to/@owlsintowels/116411291971333967 “A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta…” Douglas Adams

• Post #1180442

  Haydn basically invented the string quartet. That was a quarter of a millennium ago. This is what string quartets can sound like today. Update (as Mastodon did not succeed in expanding that URL very well): This is the Kronos Quartet playing at an NPR Tiny Desk Concert. The pieces they play are: Neil Young (arr. Wiancko): "Ohio" Nicole Lizée: Another Living Soul Abel Meeropol (arr. Garchik): "Strange Fruit" Peni Candra Rini (arr. Garchik): "Hujan&a...

• Post #1180441

  Urban blue tits use discarded cigarette butts to protect their nests against parasites, and it helps. But do the birds think of the cancer risk? https://phys.org/news/2026-03-urban-blue-tits-discarded-cigarette.html

• Post #1180440

  The pope is coming to Monaco next weekend. This article is a historic overview of contacts between the currently two smallest independent nations in the world. https://france3-regions.franceinfo.fr/provence-alpes-cote-d-azur/alpes-maritimes/menton/visite-du-pape-a-monaco-connaissez-vous-l-histoire-toute-particuliere-qui-lie-la-principaute-au-saint-siege-3321984.html

• Post #1180439

  After a pleasant walk, it’s nice to finally get to the railway station. (That’s the building to the right in the first picture.)

• Post #1180438

  I'm too daft to fully understand this, but I suspect that it is one of those things that seem stunning without having any real consequences. Nevertheless, it is an interesting idea to think about. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-quantum-events.html

• Post #1180437

  We do not give Tamil loanwords in Hebrew enough thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_loanwords_in_Hebrew

• Post #1180436

  An article with pictures of female gladiators in Reims. There is some research about the evidence in the article. There are drawings from a third century mosaic that was found in Reims in 1860 and then destroyed in 1917 during WWI. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/figure/10.1080/09523367.2026.2632176?scroll=top&needAccess=true

• Post #1180435

  The ground in the Phlegraean Fields, Campi Flegrei, a caldera near Vesuvius, keeps moving. In Rione Terra, the ground has risen 162.5 cm since 2005. It may be part of a cycle, but it is good to look out for possible problems. (The article is in Italian. An English scholarly article follows in a reply.) https://www.focus.it/scienza/scienze/campi-flegrei-nuovo-modello-previsione-terremoti-bradisismo-terra

• Post #1180434

  Another volcano to be aware of, the Kikai caldera under the sea outside Japan. It's latest eruption, the Akahoya eruption 7300 years ago, severely affected the now exinct Jomon culture. Magma is now refilling under the surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-japan-giant-caldera-volcano-refilling.html

• Post #1180433

  Viruses are not alive, but they talk with each other. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(26)00227-8

• Post #1180432

  For all friends of viruses (or viri? or viripodes?): marine viral ecology at the animal-environmental interface. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41522-026-00939-3